Elementalist Build Guide - Titan Quest

Skill Trees: Earth and Storm
Primary Skills: Squall, Volcanic Orb, Earth Enchantment, Ring of Flame, Heat Shield, Stone Form, Storm Nimbus, Storm Surge, Ice Shards, Energy Shield, Summon Wisp -- Summon Core Dweller, Eruption and Fire Nova are optional
Important Stats: Physical Resistance, Pierce Resistance and +Skills. All 3 of those are basically required. You'll also want a small amount of -Recharge, Increased Energy Regeneration or Energy Cost and Increased Cast Speed
Attributes: Intellect and Enough Dexterity to use Stonebinder's Cuffs/gear. I'd recommend putting some into Health too if you'd like more survivability. It won't help much though as spike damage is what kills you.

The Elementalist is a pure caster build in Titan Quest and prior to the Atlantis/Ragnarok/Anniversary Edition of the game it was one of the most powerful caster builds in the game. Now I personally would rate it a subpar build at best and definitely not one that is noob friendly. You'll be using 11 - 13 abilities on this class and you'll need insanely good resists (including Physical/Pierce) to give yourself even decent survivability.

With all of that said, this build is quite unique and fun to play and it can be played numerous different ways depending on which abilities you choose to primarily use. There is a good guide here which I based my build off of that uses slightly different abilities than I do.

For this build when leveling up I invested most of my points into Intelligence with enough into Dexterity to wear Stonebinder's Cuffs. I also put a small amount of points into Health since I don't like being very squishy. As aforementioned, with this build you'll need to invest heavily into resist gear. You want 60% more Pierce resist and at least 50% Physical resist. It's ok to have 40-50% Elemental Resists because the skills we use will make up for it, Pierce and Physical are the most important.

In addition to needing very high resists you'll also need to get a lot of +Skills for this build to function well. +5 or more Skills is almost mandatory for this build since it's such a skill point heavy build. Getting a small amount of -Recharge, Increased %Energy Regeneration, %Casting Speed will help out significantly with this build as well.

As you may be realizing, this is an extremely gear heavy build. You're most likely going to need inheritance gear in order to fulfill all of these requirements; it's very unlikely you'll be able to farm all of this gear up using this character as it'll suck without any gear in the first place. Here are some examples of decent pieces of gear to use with this build:

- Archmage's Clasp (if you aren't using Stonebinder's)
- Vestment of the Overlord (+2 Skills with resists and Energy regen)
- Caduceus (Staff with great resists and regeneration)
- Band of Souls (Ring with great resists and tons of Leech)
- Hesione's Golden Veil (Helm with resists + bonus elemental damage + Energy Regen + -Recharge)
- Lei Kun's Gnarled Staff (Staff with nice resists, regen and bonus elemental damage)

There are many more items you can choose from, I would recommend downloading and using a third party program called TQ Vault. This program will let you create Artifacts from the recipe (no mats required) as well as store TONS of additional items. For builds like this one where you need to heavily mix and match gear to get the results you want, you'll want a program like this.

With all of that out of the way, let's take a look at the abilities this build will be using and I will give you a little bit of information about each one and how it is used/why it is important.

Important: Many of the skills this build uses you don't want to max out, instead you'll want to let your +Skills carry you. Only max out the best skills that you use constantly. Additionally, if you get lucky enough to get +5 Skills or more on your gear you can take a point out of each ability you have maxed and it'll still be capped. In this game you can only go +4 over with each skill; so if you have +5 to skills 1 will be wasted... unless you take a point out of the skill. This is a nifty trick that will let you get the most out of every skill point.

(Earth) Volcanic Orb: We're using this spell half because it does good damage and half because it offers good CC. Once you get the passives this ability will create fragments that can stun enemies for 1.5 seconds; this will be helpful in stunning a group of enemies around you or running towards you.

(Earth) Earth Enchantment: This skill as well as its passives will buff you and your pets damage. Stone Skin will increase your Fire Resist as well as give you increased armor on each piece of armor you're wearing. The bonus Fire Resist here will allow you to not cap out your own Fire Resistance.

(Earth) Volativity: A passive ability that increases your damage significantly. Max it.

(Earth) Ring of Flame: One of your two important Auras, it'll deal fire damage to any enemies close to you. Pair this with Storm Surge and they'll both deal damage to enemies close to you. This is an important ability for the Stone Form strategy that we'll talk about later. Additionally, with this ability comes the passive Soften Metal which will reduce the Offensive Ability of enemies attacking you. This is very important as well. It'll give you the little bit of survivability you need.

(Earth) Heat Shield: One point wonder, dump a point into it as well as 1 point into the passive with it. You'll want to keep this up at all times for the 15% Physical Resist it gives.

(Earth) Stone Form: This as well as the passive tied to it are other one point wonder abilities. If you have extra points put them into the passive as bonus damage reflection will help more. Basically this ability is your "oh shit" button as well as the ability you'll be using to dispatch very hard hitting enemies that move too quickly to kite.

(Earth) Summon Core Dweller: It's up to you whether or not you want to invest points into this ability. It's very costly and in order to get the most out of your Core Dweller you'll need to max out Inner Fire as well as the Metamorphosis passive abilities. Throughout Acts 1 - 3 on every difficulty the Core Dweller will be powerful but it'll dwindle in power during Act 4 and 5.

(Optional Earth) Fire Nova: Fire Nova is mediocre damage on a short cooldown. The main upside of this ability is that it will give Impaired Aim to ranged enemies, it's helpful to have this ability in parts of the game with an insane amount of archers, like the Machae in Act 4.

(Optional Earth) Eruption: Honestly I kind of like this ability more than Ice Shard. Drop an Eruption and Squall ontop of each other and it'll basically just eat enemies alive. Drop a Squall and Eruption ontop of yourself then go into Stone Form and the damage from those two abilities + the damage from Ring of Flame and Storm Surge will kill basically anything attacking you before Stone Form fades.

(Storm) Storm Nimbus: This is the Storm Skill tree's version of Earth Enchantment, it'll increase the amount of Cold and Lightning elemental damage you deal. I'd recommend putting a few points into this skill as well as the two passives that come along with it. Usually I do not max them out.

(Storm) Storm Surge: Arguably one of your most important abilities. Not only will it deal damage to enemies beating on you but it'll also offer you protection since it occasionally stuns enemies as well. This paired with Ring of Flame will deal good damage when enemies surround you. Useful when you use the Storm Form strategy.

(Storm) Squall: Your right click ability. Best ability in the Storm tree for virtually any build. It's a targeted AoE ability that debuffs enemies as well as deals good damage to them. If you have Eruption, dropping a Squall and Eruption ontop of each other will eat almost any pack of enemies alive. Additionally, you can drop Squall and Eruption ontop of yourself then go into Stone Form. Enemies will then be damaged by 5 different abilities all at once, Squall, Eruption, Storm Surge, Ring of Fire and the passive retaliation on Stone Form.

(Storm) Ice Shard: Your left click ability. Great for bosses and packs of enemies; it can shotgun enemies too since it fires off multiple projectiles. Alternatively, if you choose not to get this ability I also like to use Volcanic Orb as my left click ability instead.

(Storm) Energy Shield: This is Storm's version of Heat Shield. It's not as good as Heat Shield since it doesn't offer 15% Physical Resist but it does offer you Lightning and Cold resist instead. It will also reflect some of the elemental damage done to you back at enemies, which is a nice feature as well. Since this spell provides you protection against Cold and Lightning and Heat Shield provides you with protection against Fire, you'll be able to invest less into Elemental Resistances than many other builds. This will allow you to invest more into Pierce and Physical Resist.

(Storm) Summon Wisp: The Wisp is a bread and butter ability for this build due to the passive Eye of the Storm ability. This increases Elemental Damage by 100% (or more with additional +Skills). Additionally, Eye of the Storm also gives you a buff that increases your Cold and Lightning Resist by 33%. Much like with Energy Shield, this will allow you to invest less into Elemental Resistances and more into Physical and Pierce Resistance.

I know the list of abilities can be a bit daunting, out of every build I have played in Titan Quest this one by far requires the most abilities to function. There are so many abilities to use, I have to swap hotbars just to summon one of my pets because I lack the available hot bar room to map every ability.

Along with using a lot of abilities you should expect to be using tons of potions with this build as well. You'll constantly be chugging health potions in anticipation of taking damage and mana potions every time you need to refuel Energy. I wish I could say I had to constantly chug potions because I sucked but even other Elementalist Videos I found, the people chug health potions in the same way I do. With how low our survivability is, it's almost instinct to hit your health pot when it is off cooldown -- even if you're not taking damage.

Last but not least, we need to talk about how this build is played. I'd recommend you watch my video (linked on this page) but I will also give you some information on this page that should help you out too. There are technically three methods you can use, using my build.

Strategy #1 The Caster Method: I typically open up with throwing Volcanic Orbs at the group of enemies as they run to me and then spam Ice Shard when they get close enough. If you have Fire Nova it's also useful to hit this when enemies get close enough. All in all this is your typical bread and butter approach for taking out most enemies.

Strategy #2 The Stone Form Method: Since our survivability sucks on this character, sometimes you'll encounter packs of enemies that you stand almost no chance against. Typically enemies that primarily use melee or pierce damage are the most deadly for us - this strategy helps us counter it. What you'll want to do is combine your Ring of Flame and Storm Surge damage with Squall and Eruption if you have it. Drop a Squall and Eruption ontop of yourself and go into Stone Form. Enemies around you will take damage from not only your Squall, Eruption and any active pets you have but also your Ring of Flame and Storm Surge. Additionally, if they are hitting you they'll be taking damage from your Stone Form retaliation too. Typically this will kill every enemy before your Stone Form fades... Hopefully it does because if they're all still alive after Stone Form, you usually won't be.

Strategy #3 Boss Killing Method: Ice Shard, this ability shotguns enemies (meaning every projectile deals damage to them). Spam this with Squall and any other high damage ability you've picked up. You can see a really good example at the end of this video of how much ass Ice Shards kicks.

 

Other Tips:

- If you're struggling in Titan Quest and need some help check out my Best Leveling Abilities Guide, my Titan Quest F.A.Q or my Titan Quest Tips & Tricks pages for a lot of helpful info about this game. Additionally if you're curious what I think the Best Builds Are in Titan Quest check out that guide too. Last but not least you should consider getting TQVaultAE which is a third party program that nearly everyone who plays TQ uses.

- Curious what other sorts of gear you should get for this build? I have put together a long list of Overpowered Gear Combos in Titan Quest that you may find useful. The guide contains information for all sorts of build combinations and specializations; both offensive and defensive gear choices are included as well as Monster Infrequents you can farm for Best In Slot items for your characters.

- Try to level as mostly Earth or Storm. Don't mix and match them until late game or you'll gimp yourself